1874 vs. 1914

mnb77

In my study of the history of the Jws, I have come across a piece that says the JW's story keeps changing. The book I am reading says, " IT is one thing to claim that Christ returned invisibly in 1914, but another thing to make that caim after you have already sopent 50 years telling people that he returned invisibley in 1874-- and then changed your mind. Yet the JW org has done just that. When The Watchtower began publication back in 1879, it was orginally titled Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. And 50 years later, in the book prophecy by Rutherford, this 1874 "presence" was still being heralded: "The Scriptural proof is that the second presence of the Lord Jesus Christ began in 1874 AD" (pg. 65) Now the society says that he returned in 1914. So, by their own admission, they were false heralds, announcing the presence of a Christ who was not there, from 1874 until 1914. "

Which is it? I see how people can get confused with everything changing.

bennyk

And then the GB uses this falsehood as a credential to prove their divine appointment. 'The pre-1914 anointed had calculated that the Bridegroom, Christ Jesus was about to make an appearance...' (WT 2004 01.March, second study article, paragraph 6 (maybe).) This, as you have pointed out, is patently untrue.

garybuss

Good post mnb77

The Witnesses I know don't care. The non Witnesses I know don't care. The benefit I have found to knowing Watch Tower Corporation history is helping searching members who leave and are still superstitious about gods and ghosts and goblins.

I studied my way back to sanity and I know quite a few others who did too. The claims made by the owners of the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation can easily be shown ridiculous using only objective facts. There is no faith needed to refute the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation.

greendawn

What happened is that Russell was expecting the return of Jesus in the 1870's and when it did not happen he tried to explain it away the smart way: Yes He returned but invisibly something which of course no one could verify, let alone that the second return was always believed by all to be a visible one, and that is after all the logical way to think of it. An invisible return is not a return, it's a contradiction in terms.
So Russell was saying just wait the visible return would come finally in 1914, that is Armageddon, which of course didn't come. He then set two more dates 1915 and 1918 but they also failed.
After that Rutherford tried to clear the mess by bringing the supposed invisible return forward to 1914 and Armageddon to 1925. In other words Russell was wrong there was no invisible return before 1914 just as there was no visible one in 1914/1915/1918. And needless to say Rutherford's own dates also proved wrong in time.
The point is that Russell and Rutherford proved to be false prophets and teachers and those still following them despite their failures were/are deeply into self imposed deception. They would all have been executed in ancient Israel.

Dan-O

"They would all have been executed in ancient Israel."

Darn shame they're not still around. I have some stones that we could throw ...

peacefulpete

The two lines of reasoning for 1914 being the date for the Big Boom were the Pyramid measurments (which were inherited from a lying nut case Adventist yet further falsified by Russel to fit 1914) and adding "40" to 1874 seeing a prophecy in the 40 years in the desert story. The calculations extrapolated from Daniel were tweaked to make it appear to corroborate. Later they dropped the first two and pretended that Daniel spin was their "proof" they had predicted the invisible "presence" to occur in 1914. Many lies.